1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to immortalized cell lines. More particularly, the present invention relates to immortalized human lung cell lines or cell lines derived therefrom.
2. Description of the Related Art
Lung cancer is one of the more common forms of cancer and the cell type in which the majority of these cancers arise is the bronchial epithelial cells. Mesothelial cells are a less common, but important, site of origin of lung cancer. Both normal human bronchial and mesothelial cells could be cultured in vitro, but only for a limited period of time before cellular replication ceases. When transformed by transfection of the viral Harvey ras oncogene (Yoakum, et al., Science, 227:1174, 1985), human bronchial epithelial cells replicate for longer periods of time, but these cells are tumorigenic, grow in serum-containing media as do carcinoma cell lines, and have been constructed to contain an oncogene closely related to oncogenes sometimes found in human carcinomes. Similarly, human bronchial carcinoma and mesothelioma cell lines are tumorigenic.